Last summer, an arson fire was set in the Klamath National Forest near Horse Creek, a tributary to the Klamath River in Northern California. Tragically, fire burned several homes in this remote canyon. Now, under the guise of fire prevention, the Forest Service wants to log remote forests on the Siskiyou Crest.

Pickett West is not a light-touch restoration-thinning project. Rather it is an old-school timber grab that will harm wildlife and watersheds. Native forests on public lands will have canopy cover reduced to 30% with no protections for old-growth forests and large fire-resilient trees. Worse still, while the BLM is still taking public comments, it is already marking old-growth trees to sell to the highest bidder.

These are the special places where many of us go to explore and enjoy nature, and where we get our clean drinking water. These public lands offer a place for wildlife to thrive. As our stewards, public land managers work for us and must take into account how we use these lands today, where we get our water, and how climate change will impact our forests into the future.